The Doctor's Diary
by AmeliaPonders
Summary: They say words are immortal. That long after your death you will live through the things you've chosen to commit to the page. They are your thoughts, feelings, and experiences, your voice preserved for generations to come; a snapshot of a person otherwise forgotten. But what do these words mean if you are immortal?
1. War

_War_

They say words are immortal. That long after your death you will live through the things you've chosen to commit to the page. They are your thoughts, feelings, and experiences, your voice preserved for generations to come; a snapshot of a person otherwise forgotten. But what do these words mean if _you_ are immortal? Is it worth the risk, then, to share yourself? To create a tangible record of what you've done when, inevitably, you'd rather forget so very much of it? He wonders this as he stares down at the small yet heavy object in his hand, feeling all at once self-indulgent, ridiculous, and in desperate need to express himself. Just admitting that this thing exists is something he struggles with but given the hell that has been his life thus far, and the knowledge that he has no chance of escaping it, this one small thing has been his salvation – even when he doesn't want to be saved. He chuckles at this thought. He can't help it, because for all of his overblown, war-torn ruminations, for all of the anguish this thing has caused him to relive and release, release and relive, there remains a truth that to anyone else seems so innocuous and simple.

The Doctor has a diary.


	2. Nine

_Nine_

The Doctor has a diary.

At this point, he doesn't even remember when he started writing in it, or when he even got it for that matter. It's just sort of always there and even when he can't remember where he last left it, it tends to pop up right when he needs it. He suspects the TARDIS is responsible for this and acts like he's annoyed with her for it; who is she to tell him when he needs to "express his feelings?" He's not some human who needs to pay someone to listen to him prattle on about his dreams or whatever it is people do when they visit a psychologist. But inevitably, after a particularly tragic failure to save a planet or race or being, he'll find the diary by his side. And inevitably, that is when he writes. He curses at the TARDIS, but she feels how grateful he is for her gesture.

He's been traveling alone a lot lately, and it's getting to him. It just reminds him of his fate; no matter how many "companions" he has, he's doomed to outlive them all and be alone. At what point do you stop bothering to find a friend? Sometimes, he thinks, living forever is more like dying forever.

As these and a thousand other thoughts fly through his mind, he scrawls away in the diary, scowling as he forms the graceful circular glyphs of Gallifreyan. He completes an entry just as the TARDIS lands: _Must go now. At destination. I've reduced myself to investigating reports of living plastic in 21__st__ century England just for something to do. Shouldn't be anything life-changing. Nothing ever is anymore._


	3. Ten

_Ten_

The Doctor has a diary.

He hates to admit it, but he's grown rather fond of the thing. He's grown fond of quite a bit lately; he tells himself it's the new body giving him all this boyish enthusiasm, but he knows it's a lie. The real reason he's been so energized has just walked into the library and sat down on the arm of the Doctor's oversized club chair.

"What're you doin', Doctor? Hey, is that a diary?" The Doctor quickly pulls the book away and out of Rose's view. "Oh, come on, it's nothing to be embarrassed about."

Thankfully, she can't read Gallifreyan and the TARDIS doesn't translate it, otherwise it would absolutely be the most embarrassing thing he could ever possibly show her. First there are the (increasingly frequent) entries that sound more like the musings of a thirteen-year-old girl with her first crush than the thoughts of a man who's over 900. Those, of course, are the entries about her. And then there are the others. The ones about what he's seen. The ones about how much he hates himself sometimes. The rages against any number of inferior species in the universe, about the times he couldn't or _didn't_ help. She'd find his angry ramblings mad, barbaric, and selfish; the tortured darkness inside him would repel her so fast he wouldn't even see her go. She would know what he truly was: a coward.

"What do you write about?" Rose asks softly. She senses his discomfort, but she also yearns for him to open up to her more.

"Lots of things," he hedges. She gives him a look that clearly indicates this answer was not enough.

He takes a deep breath and tries again. "Mostly, I write about where I've been and what I've done. And the… consequences."

She sees the pain in his eyes; vulnerability mixed with self-loathing. It makes her heart break a little. She wants nothing more than to make that look go away forever. She realizes she's staring at him when he mutters "Never mind. It's stupid."

Rose takes the Doctor's hand and squeezes it. "No, it's not," she says adamantly. "It's brave."

The light – for the moment, at least – has returned to his eyes.


	4. John Smith

_John Smith_

The Doctor has a diary.

Right now, he doesn't actually know he's the Doctor, but he writes in the diary all the same. This time, though, it's in English, and there's no trace of his numerous Gallifreyan entries. He'll later learn that the TARDIS stored them in the watch along with his Time Lord consciousness and can conveniently restore them to the pages of his bigger-on-the-inside diary. For now, he knows only that it is his Journal of Impossible Things and that he is John Smith, mild-mannered, bumbling professor who teaches boys history… and how to shoot guns.

He knows that England is on the brink of war, and he knows these boys will likely be the ones to fight in it. He tells himself they should at least be well-prepared if they've no choice in that. Still, Nurse Redfern's disapproval weighs on him. He's come to like her quite a bit – to the point that he even dared to show her his journal with all the stories and drawings of his curious dreams, featuring himself as some kind of traveler to other worlds.

Before Nurse Redfern, the only other soul he's shared this with is his servant, Martha. She is his trusted confidant, but as such has gotten a little too cheeky with him lately, especially when she walks in on him kissing Joan Redfern and then brazenly tells him he shouldn't pursue the relationship. There's something about Martha that makes him nervous recently; when he looks at her, he feels like she knows something that he needs to know, too, but she refuses to tell him.

Besides, he hasn't time to waste on cheeky servants and what they may or may not know. He is falling in love with Joan, and that's all that matters. But as he shows her another page of his Journal of Impossible Things, one with a drawing of an alien machine shaped like a pepper pot, he can't help but wonder why, exactly, these vivid and otherworldly dreams creep into his mind each and every night.


	5. Metacrisis

_Metacrisis_

The Doctor has a diary.

It's nowhere near as interesting as his bigger-on-the-inside, basically immortal diary. (In the years he had that one, he'd thrown it into the fire eight times, it fell into the swimming pool twice, and there was a brief period where it was actually radioactive, but without fail it would be on the side table in the library the next day in pristine condition.) Then again, he's not immortal anymore, either.

Not surprisingly, Rose is the one who suggests he start a new diary. He insists he doesn't "need one" anymore because he is happy now; happy with her. She rolls her eyes and says he's cute and sweet but he's not getting off that easily.

"I just thought… maybe this could help. With the nightmares and stuff." She rubs his arm soothingly. The Doctor gives her a sad smile and tucks a piece of her hair behind her ear.

"You know about those, huh?"

"Doctor. We share a bed."

"Yeaahh, but you're a deep sleeper and I figured with how impossible it is to wake you in the morning that in the middle of the night you would -"

She cuts him off with a gentle kiss. "It's okay. I know you're not very comfortable talking about it, and that's fine. But you can't just let these things build up, yeah? The nightmares aren't gonna stop if you just keep pretendin' like they're not real. And I noticed how much your old diary seemed to help you with the…dark stuff."

He gazes at her, awestruck at the fact that somehow she knows him better than he knows himself, and he's got 900 years on her. "I'll give it a try," he says in a voice not much above a whisper.

A few weeks later, she sees him writing in it, in Gallifreyan. The fact that he still has the language, this one link to his lost people (and, let's face it, to the other him) is something she is glad for. She also knows that taking her advice and writing in the diary isn't easy for him, whether it's in an effort to overcome his demons or express his feelings or whatever else he's using it for. She walks up behind him and kneads his shoulders.

She whispers a single word in his ear: "Brave."


	6. Eleven

_Eleven_

The Doctor has a diary.

He uses it with River, to see where they are in each other's lives, but when they're comparing timelines, he keeps the diary close to the vest. River, after all, is a child of the TARDIS and can read the Gallifreyan he writes. Once she got a glimpse and cocked an eyebrow at his somewhat saucy description of some Coridoxian he'd accidentally married awhile back. The Doctor pulls the diary away when he sees her staring and she smirks.

"Sweetie," she tells him, "you misspelled 'buxom.'"

What she doesn't tell him is that she read more than an anecdote about unintended matrimony. She saw some strange, alarming phrases.

_Silence will fall when the question is asked._

_The fall of the Eleventh_

She looks at the Doctor again and can tell he's troubled by something, even though he's trying so hard to hide it by prattling on about a new nebula he wants to see on the way to that market on Shreng with the berries he loves.

River's parents (who don't know they're her parents yet) enter then, and the Doctor bounces over to them. "Amy! Rory! Do you remember those shrengberries I had you try? I thought we could swing by and get some. Have a little midnight dessert. Or four o'clock dessert or nine o'clock dessert, it makes no difference in the TARDIS and we eat berries when we want! What do you say?!"

Amy laughs. "The last time you ate those you were so wound up that you broke the table football and Rory nearly passed out from exhaustion after playing with you for six straight hours."

"Hey!" protested Rory. "It's not like it was _regular_ table football. It was extreme table football. Most people can't last an hour."

Amy pats his back. "Yes, you're very sporty," she says, not really bothering to hide her patronizing tone.

They start making their way to the console room. The Doctor turns around and grabs his diary off the table, shooting River a look as he does so. She smiles and gets up to follow him, Amy, and Rory, but first she quickly jots something in her own diary.

_5:02 PM 22/04/2011 _

She'll figure out what it means later.


	7. Twelve

_Twelve_

The Doctor has a diary.

With the regeneration, he'd forgotten about it until one day it "falls" off a shelf and smacks him in the head. He picks it up and the memories of everything he's written come flooding to the front of his mind: the pain, the terror, the anguish that only one who cannot die can feel. But then again, he concedes, others can't experience all the triumph, joy, and love contained in the old book, either. Besides, if the TARDIS is just going to keep bothering him about it, he might as well write in the thing again. He scowls – he'll do it but he doesn't have to be _happy_ about it, he mentally tells his ship. This is just to get her off his back. Again.

He sits down in the library and, after a pen falls on his head a second later, opens the diary once again.


End file.
